New Delhi: A leading biographer of Mother Teresa says he had anticipated the world renowned nun would become a Catholic saint as he had found her sacrifices for the poor exemplary and heroic.
“In my hearts of hearts, I knew this (her canonization) would come in some day,” Navin Chawla, author of the most popular biography of Mother Teresa, told a press conference in New Delhi on August 30.
The former Chief Election Commissioner wrote the biography soon after Mother Teresa was conferred the Noble Peace Prize in 1979 and the Bharat Ratna (jewel of India), the highest civilian award in India, the following year.
He said he was impressed when he learned that Mother Teresa had been convinced at the age of 18 that her life’s vocation lay in her becoming a missionary in far off India.
“Confronted with disease, destitution and death all around her at a time, there was hardly any health care service to speak of, she sacrificed her life for the poor people. I was moved when I had met her for the first time,” the 71-year-old bureaucrat said.
Albanian by birth, Mother Teresa had come to India in 1929 as a novice nun and lived in the country subsequently. She devoted her life to the care of the sick and poor.
Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi explained the canonization process for Mother Teresa began soon after her death in September 1997 as the then Pope, John Paul II, waived the waiting period of five years, The Statesman reported.
The press conference was held at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Mother Teresa’s canonization would be an important event for India, said the conference secretary general Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas. The prelate, a former Vatican official, expressed the Church’s gratitude toward the Indian government for its support to the canonization ceremony at the Vatican on September 4.
“We thank the government for its support. It would be an important day for the world, especially for Indians as the Mother came here from Albania and put the gospel values and Indian values together to reach out to millions of brethren in the peripheries and beyond boundaries of caste, creed and religion,” Bishop Mascarenhas said.
The Church official denied allegations that the founder of the Missionaries of Charity had used services as façade for converting poor people into Christianity.
“She didn’t seek to convert you. She sought to make you better. We in India became richer because of her poverty, greater because of her humility, blessed because of her compassion. She lived among us and gave compassion and mercy to those who needed it,” he added.